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James S. Hirsch’s Book, Hurricane
In James S. Hirsch’s book about Rubin "Hurricane" Cater, Hurricane, the author describes how Carter was wrongfully imprisoned and how he managed to become free. Hirsch tells about the nearly impossible battle for Carter and his friend John Artis for freedom and justice. Both, Carter and Artis, were convicted of a triple homicide, and both were innocent.
The book raises the importance of, and questions, the writ of habeas corpus. Carter used a writ of habeas corpus to get a federal trial. Many question the legality of Carter going into federal jurisdiction, when his case should have been heard before the Supreme Court of New Jersey. It was a gamble, but the federal judge gave fair justice to Carter and Artis. The State of New Jersey appealed the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which upheld the District Court’s ruling.
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was a boxer who hailed from Paterson, New Jersey. His story begins in the summer of 1966, during the Civil Rights Movement. Carter was at the Lafayette Bar and Grill on June 17th, but he was denied service by the bartender, James Oliver, due to his race. Carter left the bar after being denied service. Around 2:30 A.M., two armed black men came into the Lafayette Bar and opened fire. Oliver and one customer were killed instantly. Two other patrons, Hazel Tanis and William Marins, were seriously wounded. Patty Valentine, a tenant who lived above the bar, looked out her window just after the shooting. She saw two black men leave in a white car.
Nearby Alfred Bello and Arthur Bradley were breaking into a factory. Bello was the lookout, and his exact location - inside or outside the bar - would be a point of concentration for the next twenty years. The police arrived at the bar within minutes. They took statements from Marins, Valenine, and Bello. Not one of them said they had seen Rubin Carter, one of Paterson’s most well-known citizens, at the scene. A police bulletin radioed officers to be on the lookout for a white car with two black men inside.
Four minutes after the shooting, but before the police bulletin, a Paterson police officer was chasing a speeding white car which was leaving town.
The psychological abuse that the four suspects were exposed to made them make a wrong confession. In addition, being in an environment where the interrogation room is tight and dark increased the suspect’s anxiety. Moreover, the Frontline documentary stated that the suspects were held in custody for long hours with Robert Ford who used threatening language in order to make them confess. Not only that the suspects made a false confession, but they also told Ford different stories on how they murdered the victim. The coercive interrogatories, led Joe Dick to accept the label Ford put on him and the others. Although Ford was supposed to act just, he acted upon his self interest. Thus, he denied all facts because of fear of embarrassment of being wrong. However, after serving many years in prison, the four suspects were released to face stigmatization and labeling from the society. Indeed, this case proved that there is a malfunction in the justice system and that there’s a need for an immediate
In the book Storm Over Texas, by Joel H. Silbey the critical controversy of North vs. South is displayed. The book goes into great detail of the wild moments leading into the Civil War, the political dysfunction that ran throughout Texas, and many reasons the American Civil War sparked up in the first place. This book truly captives great Texas history and has valid information and points of our states different point of views on history.
One of President Lincoln’s most notable infringements was his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Within months of taking the presidential oath, Lincoln ordered the suspension of habeas corpus, citing “supra-constitutional reasons for taking unilateral executive action.” Attorney General Edward Bates’ defense of Lincoln’s actions regarding habeas corpus in which he refers to it as a privilege rather than a guaranteed civil liberty serves as basis for proving the illegitimacy of this act. If the writ of habeas corpus, which protects citizens from unlawful imprisonment, is viewed in the manner that Bates (and Lincoln for that matter) refers to it, one of the most basic constitutional liberties of a right to trial can easily be deprived and can very well devolve into despotism later
For more than a dozen years, Clarence Earl Gideon lay buried in a nondescript, unmarked grave in Hannibal, Missouri. Most Americans outside of the legal community (and many within it) would neither recognize Gideon's name, nor understand the seismic impact he had on our legal system. Fortunately, Anthony Lewis, the renowned journalist now retired from The New York Times, chronicled Gideon's saga from the filing of his hand-written petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court to the momentous decision of March 18, 1963. Lewis brings to life the story of the man behind the case, the legal machinations of the court appointed lawyer (and others working with him) toiling on Gideon's behalf and the inner-workings of the Supreme Court. By telling the story, Lewis has preserved an important piece of legal and social history and we are all the richer for his doing so.
Reading newspapers or watching TV at home, at least we find one article or news describing a killing, a shooting, or an armed robbery. With all these problems, we are in fear but cannot avoid hearing and dealing with them. They happen every day and some time justice system blunders and leads to wrongly convict people for what they do not commit. This is reality of wrecked system that is resulted by injustice and corruption. Ultimately, Errol Morris confirms this reality based on a true story of an innocent convicted Randal Adams for a criminal case by creating a film, The Thin Blue Line. David Harris, an important accuser, claims Adams was a murderer and shot Robert Wood, a Dallas police officer. With Morris’ suspicion of Adams’ innocence, he turns himself to be a detective movie director and investigates the criminal case that occurred in Dallas, Texas in 1976. His goal is to show that Adams was wrongly convicted and justice system was flawed. By using juxtaposition and recreations, Morris successfully contrasts Adams and Harris to show that Adams is innocent and Harris is guilty, intensifies distrust of the legality in Adams’ wrong conviction to prove a flawed legal system, and evinces the eye witnesses are discreditable.
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus because he thought that he needed to crackdown on his political opposition. This allowed the military to arrest and imprison almost anyone who was in disagreement with Lincoln’s war effort. Lincoln decided that this freedom was no longer necessary and ordered the military to enforce the suspension. Chief Justice Taney responded to Lincoln and issued in his opinion that the president did not have this power.
On April 19th, 1989, Trisha Meili was the victim of violent assault, rape, and sodomy. The vicious attack left her in a coma for 12 days and The New York Times described it as “one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980’s.” The documentary, The Central Park Five, reveals the truth about what happened the night of April 19th, and how the subordinate group of young black boys were wrongly convicted. Analyzing the conflict theory of crime in association to the case of the central park five, understanding the way they were treated based on setting, why it was so easy for the law enforcement to pin the crime on the young black boys, and how wrongly convicting someone has great consequences along with relating it
The most blatant abuse of Lincoln's power was his suspension of habeas corpus. The suspension of this constitutional guarantee, by which a person could not be imprisoned indefinitely without being charges with some specific crime, around much opposition throughout the country. Although Lincoln himself made no concentrated efforts to suppress political oppositions, the repeal of habeas corpus enabled overzealous civil and military authorities to imprison thousands of people who were vocal in their opposition to the war against the South. During the war, in the case Ex parte Merryman, Chief Justice Taney ordered Lincoln to grant a writ of habeas corpus to a Southern agitator who had been arbitrarily jailed by military authorities in Maryland. Lincoln ignored the order. After the war, in the case Ex parte Milligan, the Supreme Court ruled that president could not suspend habeas corpus without the consent of Congress.
This paper discusses the contrast of two landmark United States (U.S.) Supreme Court cases that helped to clearly define how the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution is interpreted, and analyzes the difference between the “Constitution” and “Constitutional Law.” Two cases that are referenced in this analysis are (1) Katz v. United States, 386 U.S. 954 (U.S. March 13, 1967), and (2) Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (U.S. June 4, 1928), which differed in ruling; one eventually overturning the other. Finally, a conclusion is drawn as to the importance of these case decisions in the lives of Americans.
Imagine that a family is sitting at home watching a calm game of baseball, when suddenly they realize that a massive wall of water is approaching the neighborhood. Where did this flash flood come from, a reader might ask? The wall of water was made by the raging winds and immense power of Hurricane Andrew. Hurricane Andrew was the second most expensive storm in history that destroyed over 250,000 homes in the states of Florida and Louisiana alone. Hurricane Andrew was not predicted to make landfall, so when it did many civilians did not have any ideas that the Hurricane was coming until it was almost too late. Hurricane Andrew also caused many short and long term effects in the ecosystem and local economies.
Throughout history women have pioneered their way into occupations that were once occupied solely by men. Not surprisingly, many achievements have come from women challenging and stepping out of their expected social roles. Today most women are free to voice their opinion and express themselves in every aspect of their lives, including their marriage. It was not long ago when women were deprived of this freedoms. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin Mrs. Mallard has been informed of the death of her husband. At first she feels melancholy because they both loved each other. He never mistreated her but at the same time she was chained to him. She quickly changes her mood when realizing what the death of her husband has given her. In the story “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, Calixta is a loving
Habeas Corpus or the “Great Writ” is widely considered to the preemptive cornerstone our human civil liberties within the United States jurisdiction as it is deeply rooted within common laws of social ordinance. Habeas corpus was generally conceived by the English as early as 1215 and signed into law by King John during his short tenner, however, formally recognized in 1679. Commonly re...
The article describes a scene in Cleveland, Ohio where Cleveland police responds to an emergency call of multiple gunshots being fired and possible victims being wounded. Officers arrive at the scene of the crime only find that the victim was hit and was driving away from the scene. Nevertheless, the victim is found a few blocks away with multiple gunshot wounds, later
The book’s title, with its dry allusion to the separation of powers, does not do it justice. “Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power” represents the best account yet of what Mr. Margulies calls “a human rights debacle that will eventually take its place alongside other wartime misadventures, including the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts during World War I, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War.”
In 1954 Rubin joined the Army at 17 and took up training as a boxer; he thought this a better way of channeling all his hate and problems by taking out his aggression in the ring. During his time in the Army he rose to fame in for winning two European light-welterweight championships and decided that after he was discharged in 1956 to continue his boxing back home in Paterson, New Jersey. On his return home he again found himself caught up in what he described as hate-filled racism that was brought on by white occupations of the police in the black neighborhoods and was again sent to prison for purse snatching, he spent for years in Trenton State maximum security prison.... ... middle of paper ... ...